Ontario Liberals Launch 2011 Platform: “Forward. Together.”

Over the weekend, Premier Dalton McGuinty launched the next chapter of the ‘Ontario Liberal Plan’ to strengthen Ontario. Below are some accomplishments of the McGuinty government, as well as some highlights of the 2011 Election Platform.

Featuring just 45 new, fully costed commitments to help Ontario families stay on track, the Liberal platform offers a stark contrast to the 229 promises in the PC platform and the 119 in the NDP platform. The Ontario Liberal platform is the only one that has been costed by an economist — Scotiabank Chief Economist Warren Jestin — who confirmed that the numbers add up.

Results in health care and education

The McGuinty government has hired thousands of doctors and nurses, built 18 new hospitals and improved access to primary care.

Health investments helped Ontario go from having the longest to shortest surgical wait times in Canada and 1.3 million more Ontarians now have a family doctor.

The McGuinty government lowered class sizes in the early years, improved school buildings and introduced North America’s first full-day kindergarten program

Thanks to the hard work of our students, test scores are up and our schools are now ranked independently as the best in the English-speaking world.

Forward. Together.

The Ontario Liberals will completely implement North America’s first, full-day kindergarten program by 2014, followed by provincewide after-school programs for children aged 6-12.

A new tuition grant for full-time undergraduate students from lower- and middle- income families, based on 30% of average Ontario tuition, will save $1600 per student in university and $730 per student in college, annually.

Increasing post secondary attainment by adding 60,000 new spaces, including three new undergraduate satellite campuses.

Introducing a Healthy Home Renovation Tax Credit for things like ramps and walk-in baths to help seniors remain in their own homes.

Bringing back house calls for the frail and elderly and providing an additional three million hours of homecare from personal support workers.

I suspect the PC un-costed hole would mean one, or more, of these things happening under a Hudak government: Cuts to hospitals, cuts to education, downloading of costs to local government (which would result in higher taxes), or cuts to front-line services that help our communities to prosper. Voting PC just isn’t worth it, and we can’t afford it.